


Look At How The Stars Shine.

by kallopsia



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Haikyuu - Freeform, Romance, a little kissy action in the end, akaashi keiji - Freeform, angst later, flower shop, for now, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 09:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30086934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kallopsia/pseuds/kallopsia
Summary: In which you meet Akaashi Keiji, and the sense of amicable melancholy overtakes you.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Reader





	Look At How The Stars Shine.

When you first met him, it was during the Summer festival, in the middle of an increasingly busy and frustrating day, where people swarmed the shop looking for sweet flowers to smell to match the sweetness on their tongue from the fruity, celebratory sweets of the day.

He came in the shop asking for  _ ajisai  _ and  _ suiren  _ flowers wrapped up in a banquet, waiting patiently for everyone else to finish first before walking up to the counter, hands in his pockets and a faraway thoughtful look in his eyes.

That summer, you went down to the countryside to help granny with the shop, since the old woman had fallen a month prior and broken her hip, though she was adamant that she could take on the challenge herself, mom and dad disagreed, and so did you as you listen to her impressionable ranting. Thus, when the first days of summer arrived, bringing forth sweltering heat in Tokyo and the ever so familiar over-crowdedness, you packed up your bags and headed towards the countryside, where everything reminded you of the sweet taste of nectar and the golden of honey dripped on aesthetically pleasing pink flowers.

The woman, who at first shut the door in your face once she saw you standing outside her door, smiling cheekily and flushed from the heat, took no time in thwarting, opening the door a good thirty minutes later, still quite miffed, but grumbling that she couldn’t very well leave her only granddaughter out in the streets. You had her wrapped around your fingers in a matter of hours—exactly what you anticipated and wanted, least of all she became stubborn again and try to perpetuate something dangerous in her disabled condition.

Not that you didn’t catch her one morning trying to carry down a whale-shaped flower pot, huffing, and puffing and almost giving you a heart attack in your pajama top and panties—she had tried to be scheming old woman and attempted it when she  _ knew  _ you’d be asleep. “You have nothing to prove,” you’ve yelled at her, shamefully so, for giving you such a fright, right after you wore some pants and helped her carry the ceramic pots outside and down to the shop.

(since you lived on the house above the shop, you  _ sincerely  _ hoped no one was waiting down there for fresh morning flowers because all they’d get is a disgruntled teen with no bra on)

But, alas, you made it work. Where you sore by the end of the day and scraped all to hell from thorns and misguided steps in the flower shop’s garden? Yes, yes you were—however, to say that you did not enjoy spending time with the flowers would be a lie. Taking care of them and other mundane chores around the shop was a form of escapism, washing the city out of your veins and cleaning out your lungs from the smoke, giving you a chance to just  _ stop  _ and  _ appreciate  _ the beauty surrounding you.

You didn’t have to think about your future, or the hardships that were to come with the new school year, or the expectations you had burdened yourself with, or even the goals that seemed unreachable at the moment, no matter how much you stayed up at night or pondered over.

This was simple; summer in the countryside, with the flower shop and granny as a company, the salty, foaming great sea directly on the opposite side of the small road.

A chance to rewind and relax.

The second time you met him you also happen to learn his name; Akaashi Keiji.

He was seventeen, just like you, had messy black hair and gunmetal blue eyes, representing the darkest part of the ocean as well its mysteries, twinkling and crinkling at the corner whenever his cheeks pushed up in a smile–as rare as that occasion was, or as charming–and his biggest passions as of yet were volleyball and reading. He was calm and his smiles small, as if he didn’t want to expose too much of himself, composed and—

Well, and blunt, almost to an offensive, perpetual degree, his hidden smiles showing that he relished nothing more than your begrudging annoyance and thrived off of your poorly enshrouded amusement at his antics or sharp words—because you  _ were  _ amused in some regards, whether he was an irritating asshole at the end of the day or not, and whether he challenged you in every turn, even in your element.

“They don’t match.”

“How would  _ you  _ know?”

“My sister likes flowers, I can tell her to come down and help you create a better sense of taste.”

You felt your eye twitch, turning your back at the man leaning on the wooden counter, a small smirk stretched on his lips and blue eyes twinkling with mirth, obvious to your micro-expressions.

Akaashi had made coming into the shop and tantalizing you his seemingly favorite pastime these days—and as handsome as he was, as enjoyable as his company had been, or as funny, you were seriously considering threatening him with the giant clippers in your hands this time around.

“Yes,” you said, “bring her over so I can tell her what a snob her brother is.”

“I don’t think I’m a snob.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

Akaashi smiled, shrugging absentmindedly and unbothered by your claims, gazing at the bundle of flowers in your hands which you’ve persistently been struggling with tying the red velvet knot around. Not your favorite part of the job, admittedly, and that was not likely to change anytime soon. He stepped closer, eyes half-lidded as he lowered his gaze towards your hands, lashes fluttering, lips drawn up into a mirthful smirk.

You cursed inwardly, your grip on the velvet thread faltering.

Slowly and gently, he grabbed the two untied ends of the string from the opposite side of the counter, fingers brushing against yours with clumsy, feathered pressure, before slipping between yours. You bit the inside of your cheeks, eyes rising from the banquet to his half-closed eyes, the gunmetal blue just barely peeking from behind his eyelids.

He huffed, “you really are bad at this.”

You blinked, clearing your throat and letting the banquet in his care altogether, your fingers going numb for a mere second—though, you weren’t paying much attention to that as much as you were on his fingers, long and frustratingly fluid in their movements. “Yeah, well.” You shrugged, “some things I’m good at, some things I’m not.”

He arched a sarcastic eyebrow, clear by the way he chuckled, his gaze preoccupied with the bundle in his hands. “Oh? There are things you’re bad at? I would’ve  _ never  _ guessed with your boasting.”

“I  _ do not _ ,” you scoffed, only to have the boy laugh at your face. You reached over the counter to swipe at his arm but Akaashi stepped away just as swiftly, bringing one hand behind his back and extending the one with the flowers in his grasp forward, bowing down just the slightest with an air of mockery.

“For you. Happy eighteenth birthday next month.”

You quickly swiped the banquet–that cursed,  _ cursed  _ banquet–from him, cheeks blazing— you refused to even remotely acknowledge the fact. “Has anyone ever told you you’re an asshole? How did you know it’s my birthday anyway?”

Blue eyes twinkled, “I have my ways. Have you thought about what you’re going to do?”

You paused, raising an eyebrow at him, “how enigmatic and very much frightening, and no, I have not, why?” you asked teasingly, “have anything specific in mind?”

He hummed, “I might know a spot.”

However, before any further elaboration, the door burst open, and the hanging pots barely managing to survive feasible slaughter by  _ a thread _ .

(you’d hold your breath every time the damn door would open, deciding on moving them all together one of these days, least of all you’d have to pay for hospital bills)

“Miss flower girl!”

Something fast and blurry smacked right into you a moment later, knocking you back a step and stealing the breath from your lungs. You flailed your arms a bit by your side, trying not to fall on your ass,  _ immediately  _ recognizing the orange pigtails and green eyes which twinkled with tenacious enthusiasm.

You groaned, “Sofia, we’ve talked about this.”

The girl unclutched her talons from around your middle, though still keeping uncomfortably close to you as a toddler would.

“Sorry, miss. Granny said I could come and help you with the flowers!”

Speaking of the devil, your granny slowly walked in after the girl, cackling openly at your pinched expression, eyes flickering over to Akaashi, smiling, before settling back to you. “Little Sofia here says she’ll be the one helping me once you leave,” she said, and  _ no one  _ could mistake the mischievous tone behind her raspy voice. “And since I’ve been dimmed useless to handle the shop—“

You rolled your eyes, exasperated. “No one said—“

“I thought, who’s the best option to teach her how things work around here than my granddaughter?” she spread one arm out, the other holding onto the wolf cane, “and so, here we are, aren’t we little Sofi?”

The girl practically glowed as she chirped, “ _ yes! _ ”

“Great,” you grunted.

Sofia glanced to the side. “Hello mister,” she said, looking Akaashi up and down suspiciously. “Who are you?”

Akaashi’s face was doing that weird thing where he was smiling genuinely, eyes crinkling as he looked down at the girl. “You can call me Keiji, little Sophia.”

However, the young girl frowned with immensity up at the teenager. “Are you here to take big sis out? You  _ can’t! _ ” she stomped her little foot on the cobblestone. “She’s gonna teach me about the doggy flowers today, so go away,” she latched on to your arm like a leach. “Shoo, shoo!”

Akaashi chuckled, “right, well,” he met your apologetic gaze, “I guess I’m no longer welcomed.” He gazed down at the flowers in his hands before smirking in a way that sent a buzz down your spine before offering them to you again. You effortlessly took them from him, eyes down on the blue petunias and the pink roses.

They didn’t match, after all, you realized.

“Maybe next time we see each other you’ll have some more stylish suggestions?” You raised your gaze to meet his almost shyly, knuckles buzzing from where they met his.

“Maybe,” he answered coolly, already walking out the door where the sun immediately shined against his face, bringing the depths of his blue forth, dazzling. Waving goodbye he teasingly said, “keep those flowers alive, at least. They’re too hideous to die.”

You stared wordlessly, eyes seemingly glued to the door as he left, unfocused, simply standing there for a wordless moment, taking in the flowers, the hallowing empty shop, aside from little Sofia–who was now digging around the bag of earth you had left under the counter–and granny, slowly walking to the kitchen at the back, casting an unaware glance at you.

A sudden prickling on your finger made you blink, gasping harshly at the sudden sensation, familiar in the way it hurt as well as the trickling warmth which soon followed after, down, down, down—until it reached your palm.

You closed your hand hastily, murmuring halfhearted profanities under your breath, though the pain soon grew numb.

Quickly unwrapping the flowers from the near-perfect and mastered knot, you hurried to place them on an empty coral ceramic vase on the window seal of a window on the front of the shop, overlooking the busy street and the joyful ocean, mindless of your prickled finger.

You stared at them the ugly blue petunias and the thorny rose roses, looking soft in the sun which illuminated the specks of dust flying freely in the air, slowly. A clash of blue and pink— _ how nostalgic,  _ you smiled wryly at the flowers, heartstrings tagging oddly, somewhat bittersweet on the tongue.

Bringing up a hand to brush the petals softly, unaware of the bloody streaks you left on them.

The sun’s rays tickled the top of your knuckles as it shyly crept in from the open window, the birds outside singing their songs happily and freely, the sound of children playing, the crashing of waves against the sun, the smell of summer mixing with the aroma from the flowers.

Strangely enough, the urge to cry overwhelmed you, so much so that your bottom lips started trembling and your eyes water.

The crispy, crinkling sound of page-turning. The smell of grass and sunscreen, the heat on your neck.

“This is beyond boring.”

He hummed behind his books, smugly in a way, like he wanted to say  _ I told you so,  _ but ultimately deciding you to grace you with mercy—you knew him though, and you knew what he said without him saying it. “This was your idea though. Something calm, a non-moving, no-thinking-required activity you said.”

Another flip of the page and you were almost certain he was doing it to get on your nerves.

You inhaled, closed your eyes, trying to relax into your hammock, concentrate on the soft summer breeze blowing through your hair, the book in your hand, albeit interesting on any other day than  _ today _ , it seemed, a constant nagging on the front part of your head, an uncatchable itch. You wanted something to take your mind off things, something to provide a sustainable source of escapism from the sweltering heat and mindless, deep echoing sense of going slowly insane, the more and more your body stayed still, yet your mind raced.

The curse of Man being the superior animal, or whatever Aristotle said.

The fly that circled your head for the tenth time that day was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

With a rebellious scream, which probably sounded more like a maddening, strangled screech than anything, you jumped off the hammock, swinging your copy of  _ Moby Dick  _ in an assassination effort—and if you heard Akaashi laughing from his place on the grass, you  _ ignored it _ for the sake of your profoundly gloomy and shrinking sanity.

Preservation was far more important than vengeance—but not pettiness, which is the exact reason you stalked around the hammock to stand on top of him, feet on either side of his head and successfully blocking part of the sun that hit his face, hands on your hips, gazing down at him soaking in the sun’s rays much as a cat would, though how he could stand its sweltering heat directly—an impressive feat indeed.

“Akaashi,” you whined, “I am  _ bored,  _ amuse me.”

He cracked one eye open, deep blue peeking up at you, twinkling as he smiled calmly up at you, appealingly, charmingly. “I think you’ve been cooped up in that shop for too long, you’re restless.” he chuckled.

“Mmm.”

“Next thing you know, you’re going to be jumping off of ladders again. What were you doing again?”

You flashed, this time the sun completely unrelated to it. “I told you,” you said, stumping your leg, “I was moving those stupid pots! Mrs. Hanamaki almost run into them the other day, a bird  _ did  _ fly into them from an open window. They are cursed.”

Once again, you simply chose to ignore the way he laughed at you. “You’re lucky I decided to visit you—though, maybe I shouldn’t have, what, with the way you’ve been ogling my arms.”

“That’s not fair, you play volleyball.”

“And? Perhaps you know I was passing under and decided to fall so that I could catch you. Quite desperate.”

“When you’re saying it like that I wish you would have let me fall.” You laid out on the grass next to him, nudging him with your elbow to scoot over as if you didn’t have enough space already, but where was the fun with that, and closed your eyes against the setting sun, bright yellow melting into a mellow rose gold, fluffy clouds moving slowly and melting, taking shapes into the intangible canvas of the sky.

A subtle, feathery warm touch on your wrist.

“I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to.”

And there you stayed.

Until the mellow rose golden sky turned to pitch black, adorned with twinkling stars and the fluidity of clouds vanished. Until all the hustle and bustle on the street dimmed and until the laughter of children broke into crisp silence into the night and the sound of crickets coming from the tree lines and the grass filled the space, the weak summer breeze turning the pages from your book with freedom and ease.

You opened your eyes to the world then, listening to the crickets and Akaashi’s even breathing coming from next to you and, fighting a smile from your lips, you turned to your side, coming face to face with your friend who had most certainly feel into an aloof kind of sleep—not awake, yet not completely asleep either, obvious from the small and endearing intricate movements of his face and hands.

You stared at him, long and hard, memorizing everything on his seemingly impossible smooth skin that glowed with the last sun’s light, breathing shallow and long eyelashes fluttering. Your eyes slid down on his stomach, towards the open book. You slowly reached out for it, closing it as silently as possible and placing it on the vast open space next to you, right on top of your open one, watching as Akaashi’s hand twitched by the sudden feeling of lightness. 

You closed your eyes, using your hand as a pillow while you lazily picked at the grass, breathing in and out the forthcoming crisp air of a summer’s night, in and out until your lungs were full, until your head was dizzy until you stopped picking the grass and didn’t realize it, long enough to match Akaashi’s breathing, and soon enough to drift off as your eyelids willingly shut over your eyes.

The sound of the waves, crashing, foaming, roaring, and the smell of salt mixed with sunscreen made you feel nostalgic, so much so you, obliviously, reached out with your hand out, closing your fingers around fabric.

Through the waves, you heard it—whispers at first, an itch you couldn’t scratch in your brain, yet wanting to try anyway, dig in until there was nothing but blood and gore and broken off nails wrapped in hairs when you’d finally,  _ finally  _ be able to settle the itch. Annoying, puzzling whispers turning. Turning to laughter and thrilled screams, shouts, and aggravated, childish insults before the noise dissipated, and you were left with the strange feeling in your heart, nausea in your stomach, the clogging of your throat 

When you opened your eyes again, it was strangely cold, and the first sight you glimpsed at was the night sky, stars scattered across the open space like a rippling stream. The cold grass on your back, the splash of blue on the heavens, and the illuminating moonlight. A breathless sight, one you made sure to sheer into your brain’s eye indefinitely.

“Clear skies,” Akaashi’s voice rasped out next to you.

“Yes,” you whispered lowly, afraid the stars will hear and leave. You’ve had  _ never  _ seen anything quite like it in the city.

“There’s a story about stars like this, you know?” The grass rustled as he stirred from his sleep, turning over to his side and leaning his cheek on his arm, gazing at you freely. “About stars and death.” 

You raised an eyebrow, smiling at the boy somewhat mockingly as you matched his position on the ground, now the two of you looking directly into each other’s eyes. “What, you mean to tell me you believe in the supernatural aspect of constellations? That’s a child’s tale, I thought you were more earthbound than that,” you tutted as if disappointed.

“Hey now,” he grinned, “I can appreciate things like that, can’t I? Are you forbidding me of them?”

Waving a hand flippantly in the air, you snorted, rolling your eyes at the boy. “Go on then, tell me the story—the one about death and love and the spirits dancing in the stars.”

“You’ve heard of it?”

“Oh, yes,” you admitted. “My grandma used to put me to sleep with that particular one all the time, chatting my ears out. However…,” you trailed off, winking at Akaashi with a cunning gaze, lips tugging upwards in a devilish smirk, “I  _ love  _ the sound of your voice.” 

“Tease,” he murmured, cheek squashed by his palm, eyes as dazzling and thalassic as ever. “I’m not telling you the story. I’m saving it for a special occasion which you’re not permitted to find out.”

“Ohhh,” you drawled off playfully, wiggling your eyebrows, “now  _ who’s  _ the tease. Pray tell though, when will I get the chance to experience your lovely,  _ enchanting _ voice narrating that dull tale?”

“Well,” he smirked and moved closed to you, so much so you could feel the body heat coming from him, noses almost brushing, “on your birthday, of course. I was hoping I could come by the store, buy a stupidly expensive and phenomenal banquet so that I can then gift it to you as a token of my feelings, and then, I was thinking, we could go on a date.”

Your heart thudded, once, twice, and then stopped in your chest. “And what if I say no.”

“You won’t,” he assured you, inching closer, closer, closer still—the curve of his cupid’s bow brushed yours, delicately, temptingly. “Because you feel the same as I do, and these feelings must be explored to be perceived.”

He kissed you, slow at first, simply content on exploring the taste of your lips, placing his hand around your neck and bringing you even closer, body pressing against your, thumb caressing your jaw—and then his kiss was deeply, fervently, and with pathos.

And it was you, him, and the winking stars on the sky above you.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed this because i'm planning on making the next chapter hurt just a bit! don't forget to leave comments lol.


End file.
